Friday, January 14, 2011

Grooming Goes Mainstream

There's a meme (hate that word) about ideas whose time has come - something like the five stages of grief but different - to the effect that first they ignore it, then deny it, then say it's wicked, and a stage or two more before it moves to general acceptance. Anybody know how it goes?

The issue of 'grooming' of under age girls by predominantly Asian gangs, covered on this blog here, here and here, seems to have gone mainstream, following the publication of a UCL report which, while widely publicised, seems impossible to actually find on the Web.

Now it's even the top story on Woman Sour. Far away are the days, seven years ago, when a Channel Four documentary on the subject was pulled, after pressure from West Yorkshire Police, because it might increase support for the BNP (aka 'increase community tensions'). What was once ignored by polite society, and only spoken of by racist knuckledraggers, is now almost prime-time, earnestly discussed by the great and the good. And now, when arrests are made, even the BBC no longer looks the other way.

But there was a price to pay for all those liberal blind eyes over so many years. It was paid by working-class Yorkshire and Lancashire girls like Emma, interviewed here. The Labour MP Ann Cryer, who's been a long-time campaigner on this issue, getting stick "from leading figures within her own party, not least from the former Labour leadership contender Diane Abbott", said 'Emma's description of her situation is pretty well identical to the situation of girls in Keighley whose mothers came to see me out of desperation, because they just couldn't get any action from West Yorkshire Police or Bradford Social Services'. The same West Yorkshire Police that was suppressing the evidence for political reasons, under its Chief Constable the late Colin Cramphorn, 'a man of liberal sympathies and a Guardian reader for many years'.

Just as 52 people had to die in London before the Labour Party started putting the lives of UK citizens ahead of not being like Norman Tebbit, girls have been raped and abused over a decade* while police, media and social services looked the other way.

On-street Grooming

Recent news reports have highlighted the prosecution of a gangs (sic) of predominantly Pakistani men for the grooming and sexual exploitation of young girls. What's the best way to tackle this appauling (sic) crime without stereotyping and dividing communitites (sic)? We hear again from a young woman groomed by Pakistani teenagers from the age of 12 and then repeatedly raped. Ann Cryer, the former MP for Keighley, who's been speaking out on this issue for many years, and Yusuf Tai from Forward Thinking a group working with varied Muslim communities discuss possible ways to prevent crimes like this happening again.

* maybe a lot longer, if former Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell is right :

When I came to Blackburn in the 1970s, one of my main issues was the gangs of Asian men outside the old nightclub on top of the shopping centre who were picking up drunk white girls, specifically to abuse them. These were cars full of Asian lads in BMWs and Mercedes, offering lifts home to these young women, leading to incidents of rape and sexual assaults. From the first time I was posted to East Lancashire it has been a problem.

What Jack Straw has said so carefully is true: There is a problem with some members of the Pakistani community targeting young women in this way. In recent years we have seen it specifically with victims aged just 14, 15 or 16-years-old who are out on the streets at night and groomed by predatory gangs. For people to just come out and call Mr Straw racist is wrong.

During the past decade there has been Operation Engage in Blackburn and Operation Awaken in Blackpool as the police has been able to feel more open about the situation. In the past there have been major fears of being seen as racist, especially after the Stephen Lawrence inquiry at the Met police said the force was institutionally racist.

25 comments:

Anonymous
said...

There is nothing new in this systematic abuse of young white girls by Asian (usually of Pakistani origin) men. In the area I used to police (before I escaped to Oz - and I mean escaped) which was an affluent town in the South East of England, it was common knowledge that the owner and staff of a local Indian restaurant (which was owned and run by Pakistanis - why was did it label itself Indian?) maintained a "staff flat" above the restaurant where young girls from local childrens' homes would be plyed with alcohol and then raped.

Nothing was ever done about it despite the intel reports we (coppers on the ground) submitted. It was in the "too hard box". The victim's wouldn't co-operate with police as their source of fags and booze would dry up and the "powers that be" would not pay for and organise the necessary covert observations. There were no complaints so "it was off the radar". Let sleeping dogs lye and all that. We don't want dozens of rapes to mess up the figures, now do we?

How does this fit in with the popular lefty meme that in the 1970s (and 1980s according to some film directors) every white working class Englishman was a skinhead who spent his entire leisure time paki-bashing?

Surely all these evil white working class skinheads would have put an end to it?

I am intrigued because in the two towns I was familiar with in the 1970s there were substantial pakistani populations but the skinhead fashion thing ended in about 1972.

But apparently the rest of the country was heaving with paki-bashing skinheads.

The above suggestion that this issue was “ignored by polite society” is a gross understatement. There was ACTIVE suppression of the issue. Nick Griffin was put on trial in 2001 for raising the issue. Plus Channel 4 had a programme in the issue about 5 years ago and was accused by the great and the good (i.e. the thick) of “inciting racial hatred” or similar. Plus another Channel 4 programme “Edge of the City” had to be pulled.

Which is worse: the stench coming from PC fascists or the stench coming from the BNP?

The "anti-racist" response I've noticed is usually to dredge up stats demonstrating that paedophilia is a white crime.

Naturally ignores some rather impt considerations

Their own "anti-racism" hobbles the police

The regime can't/won't even enforce parking restrictions in a hole like Alum Rock, Birmingham - such a tight-knit, close community is virtually impenetrable. So what makes the lib-left suppose the regime can detect sexual offences there?

The anti-racists ignore the specific features of grooming, namely that it is a collective operation and that the groomers have no fear of "community sanctions" - the very reverse of the situation of the native population, where such offences are committed by individuals, small groups and are treated with utter abhorrence

But then the left are deluded dupes, how many times and how many ways can one say it?

I see Ann Cryer is getting a good back-slapping from the Scum. Perhaps my memory fails but as I recall she only reluctantly got involved in this issue because she felt her sinecure threatened by the BNP who were big on this issue in Yorkshire several years ago.

I don't know what her reasons were, but she seems a sincere person to me. I like to think that when she found out what was happening she tried to stop it, maybe to lessen the BNP impact but primarily because she thought what was happening was wrong. She's what I'd call Proper Labour.

BTW: do you think it will now be possible to mention the large number of rapist who are black?

Darcus Howe presented a documentary on Channel 4 about the high incidence of gang rape perpetuated by black teenage boys in our inner cities (probably the most productive thing he has ever done in his life). It was about ten years ago.

There was an outcry by the usual suspects. But Howe (along with Tariq Ali) was a big cheese in the "efnik" department at the station, and so had a fair bit of clout, in terms of getting the programme aired.

sexual abuse and rape has happened where-ever there are young men and vulnerable girls without a large family of fathers, brothers and cousins to protect them.Its partically a consequence of large scale abortion, reducing family sizes.

It isn't a specific issue to Pakistani men. The French and dutch have had similar problems with North Africans.

There can also be problems with some Eastern Europeans.

The problem is more caused by the libertine Western societies that thinks girls are individuals who can be left drunk on the street in the middle of the night.

Laban, nothing wrong with being a train-spotty type, a noble pastime. However believing that Anne Cryer is sincere is less forgivable. Worthy people are NOT permitted to enter the Houses of Treason. I note in the link you offer that when challenged Cryer back-pedaled in time-honoured fashion claiming she had been misquoted.

As ever LT you refuse to draw the conclusions to which your research always points. I guess you just cant overcome that deep-down conditioning.

Anne Cryer was pretty straight when she was interviewed on the World Service this morning. (I was half-asleep but IIRC it was on the Politics UK programme.) There was definitely no sign of mealy-mouthed appeasement or denial and she was not shy of criticizing the attitudes of the Muslim elders in Keighley.

Now that she has retired I would imagine she no longer feels under pressure to toe the party line.

Former DS Gradwell's recollections of the late 70s in Blackburn have got me recalling a conversation with a girl I knew at Uni c1979. She was a Peterborough lass, and one evening went into a bit of a rant about the local Pakistani guys behaving just as the ex DS describes. I didn't contradict what she had said (not knowing her home town) but found it hard to square with my own experience of south asians at Uni- who were almost all from Sikh or Hindu backgrounds.

I think thereafter I had the Peterborough girl marked in my memory as a bit of a 'racist'- so more fool me at the time for jumping to conclusions, and 'going with the flow' of received opinion on this matter.

I didn't contradict what she had said (not knowing her home town) but found it hard to square with my own experience of south asians at Uni- who were almost all from Sikh or Hindu backgrounds.

The media have worked long and hard to promote the concept of an amorphous 'asian' bloc. Which, in passing, makes a mockery of the supposed ideals of multiculturalism. Thus some of the positive attributes of non-muslim asians are associated with muslims. The wrong doings of muslims are shared out amongst asians generally.*

The current BBC fantasy muslim family in Eastenders is a classic. They are all bright, hard working, driven, stereotypical of hindus, not muslims.

Furthermore none of the actors is actually muslim, its hilarious. Thus they get to go in the pub, come out as gay etc but the nod and wink the Beeb are playing is facilitated by that fact of casting. They can portray muslims like that but as long as they dont use muslim actors, its OK! Strangely Im not aware of any outcry my muslim actors denoncing the BBC and its casting denying them those juicy roles. The (unclean) dog that hasnt barked!

*See also the treatment of gypsies. They are always eastern europeans unless they have been victimised, in which case the are gypsies again. Otherwise their wrongdoing is shared out amongst other eastern europeans.

There are some interesting parallels in American experience. Many (most?) of our pimps are black, and they often target white runaways, as well as black girls.

Our news organizations have been reluctant to discuss the subject because of the race angle.

Similarly, they have been reluctant to discuss the exploitation of under age boys by older homosexuals.

There was a minor breakthrough recently where I live, the Seattle area. Our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, put a likely victim of a pimp on the front page. (She's missing. The police appear to believe she was murdered when she tried to escape him.)

But I don't think she would have gotten that much coverage if she hadn't been black (actually mixed races, like most of our "blacks") and under age.

This "progressive area is said to have one of the highest levels of under age prostitutes in the nation. But few political leaders seem much bothered by that fact.

Anonymous@11.30PM said "Perhaps this is the long-awaited tipping point so many have expecting?"

You mean the tipping point beyond which the masses will wake up and revolt against their masters?

I wondered five years ago when the tipping point would come. Then I discovered that others had been asking the same question roughly fifty years ago. Race riots, mass unemployment, the 7/7 bombings, the surrender of our sovereignty to the EU and Neathergate: none of these things has produced the mass awakening so many have hoped for.

With more money, more activists, more influence in the media, a party like, say, the BNP could certainly win popular support. But we should not complacently suppose that if we just sit and do nothing, at some point things are going to get so bad that the majority will, at last, "get it".